


Studies in Secrecy

by Beauteousmajesty



Series: On discovery [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Genderfluid Character, None of my Nordics are cishet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 22:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18583993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beauteousmajesty/pseuds/Beauteousmajesty
Summary: Iceland’s first lesson was how to keep a secret, he’s shaped his existence around them. He’s never figured out what to do when people find out.Warning: witch burning is alluded to but not in much detail.





	Studies in Secrecy

**Author's Note:**

> So here’s one of the necessary bits of connecting text for the series to actually work.   
> I’m not sure if I’m quite happy with my Iceland yet, but this is more of a compilation of panicked Iceland than regular Iceland so...

The first language that Iceland had learned was that of secrets. Norway had spent his early childhood teaching him how to hide. Sometimes his lessons were presented as games; the little nation learning to disappear as he played hide and seek with his brother.

His lessons had come in handy throughout his childhood, he could hide whilst Norway fought off attackers on the roads before coming to collect him and resuming their journeys.

His second lesson in secrets he learned from these encounters, watching his brother fight human men. Norway always hid his emotions from these strange men, hiding any anger or sadness he’d shown to Iceland prior to the encounter behind a mask of eerie calm. Even when Norway was hurt he seldom showed it, even to his little brother. Often Iceland only noticed his brother was hurt when they reached wherever they were going and his brother stopped to tend his wounds.

Also in these encounters Iceland noticed that his brother hid his age and ability, masking his magic and fighting as a human. As a child, Iceland didn’t understand why their nationhood had to be hidden. Surely there was nothing wrong with them just being alive? But Norway told him to keep it a secret, so the small child listened obediently because Norway had used his serious voice.

The next secrets he learned to keep were those of his country, sharing his political insight only with the brother who ruled him and his human governors that recognised him. Norway warned him of the dangers of other nations, even though Iceland couldn’t yet see them. All of his brother’s stories sounded more like tall tales than reality, because surely if keeping national secrets was key to good health Denmark would be long gone.

He ventured this point to Norway one night beside the fire, when they sat out on furs beneath the stars. His brother was in a good mood for reasons he didn’t understand but his questions got better answers when Norway was happy, so he was happy too. Norway only laughed at his question and told him to listen more closely to what Denmark said in all his ceaseless rambling to see if he could find those secrets Iceland assumed he’d spilled.

Iceland listened studiously for a day before deciding that Denmark was boring, saying nothing of interest at all, and that he could return to tuning him out. Once he’d decided that, he conceded to himself that maybe Norway had a point. Although he’d rather fall in a volcano than admit that to him. After that, he rarely talked about his people with anyone who wasn’t his brother.

As time progressed, Iceland learned that more and more of the things he assumed were normal were to be kept a secret. People weren’t allowed to know that Nor was sometimes his sister or that Nor could make snowflakes with only his fingers. People weren’t allowed to know about the way he felt his volcanoes beneath his skin. People weren’t allowed to know about the way that Dan and Nor spoke of the old gods or that he’d learned to write with runes rather than the new alphabet.

It was a lot of secrets to keep, and for a long time, Iceland didn’t understand why he had to keep them all. Nothing could possibly happen if people found out. They were all themselves after all. Iceland couldn’t imagine anyone ever hating Norway, even if he did things his kings said he wasn’t allowed to.

It was only when Iceland was older that he came to understand the magnitude of the secrets they all kept. It took watching Norway’s people turn against him to realise that their secrets were for their own safety. The smell of his brother’s burning flesh still clung to his memory, bringing him nightmares through the successive years, each one reminding him firmly to keep his secrets.

So he did. He kept his secrets, wary to trust even Norway as the years passed by and his brother left for almost a hundred years. He spent years watching Denmark hold a conversation in which he’d learn every detail he could want from the other participant without straying from the safety of small talk. Iceland had never quite figured out how he did it. Norway had a similar method of collecting information with somehow even less small talk than Denmark, although Iceland suspected that some of Denmark’s small talk was for the sheer enjoyment of conversation.

He learned how to evade topics of conversation, skating around human concerns of his family and his age, finding it easier to fall into the roles that humanity assigned to him than to create his own. He learned how to play a part, how to lie, and how to deflect. Secrets were his first lesson and he had mastered them.

His world was shaken to the core when their secret was shared with humanity. He had based all his behaviours and habits in the interest of hiding his immortality and nationhood. When it was known, he didn’t know how to act. So he hid in his house and called his brother, smelling once again the pungent reek of remembered death as his brother’s phone rang through to voicemail again and again.

He couldn’t go outside, group texts from other nations warned him how dangerous that would be. No matter how agitated his people were at his existence, he assumed that joining them might stir them into a mob. Iceland knew well enough that mobs only got people killed, his brother had burned, after all. That left only waiting. Waiting and calling his brother, waiting for him to answer and provide a new lesson.

His government called him first, checking on him and laying out new security measures for what they deemed a ‘period of future uncertainty’. Iceland’s job was now to sit and wait. Somebody else would provide him a new reality to shape his life around.

He’d run out of news websites by the time his brother phoned. He’d been scrolling through different countries’ media, testing his languages and watching situations unfold. There had been a situation detailed by his brother’s media, he was sure of it, but all of a sudden he couldn’t remember what had happened. He guessed that Norway had hidden it and declared it another secret.

If that was how Norway wanted to do it, Iceland was fine with that. But he resolved to remember that he had to ask Norway what had happened next time he was in a good mood. Or he could ask Denmark, because he was fairly certain that Denmark had been somehow involved, as he was in most of Norway’s misadventures.

Norway used the call to fluctuate between mother-henning over Iceland and redefining the secrets of their new phase of existence for Iceland to shape his life around. 


End file.
